He has a genius for finding such unbelievable truths that they easily masquerade as fantasy - I've lost track of the times when I have found some real world foundation for something in Discworld and been amazed by both the fact that what I had thought to be whimsical invention is actually true, and the breadth of Terry's knowledge of recondite material

One of my classmates was telling us she was seeing a guy named Merlin. Needless to say this meant everyone instantly stopped caring about her relationship problems and just kept asking if he was a wizard.

This is a Dutch one,but it fits so well i had to post it :Beenhakker(I tried google translation to see what came up,but that seems to be in love with Leo Beenhakker,which just won't do ,so my best guess the english translation would be something like Legchopper.) as in :http://www.beenhakker.nl/(Beenhakker levert een compleet assortiment mobiliteitshulpmiddelen..Transl to english : Legchopper supplies a complete assortment of mobility-aids...)Might be a leftover from the days when Napoleon forced the Dutch to take on last names and a lot took their professions as surnames.

'It's just like crop circles. No matter how many aliens own up to making them, there are always a few diehards who believe that humans go out with garden rollers in the middle of the night-'

I see a lot of weird, oldfashioned and funny names at work, a lot of them don't translate well, but my favorite is Anna Melody, which with a very broad norwegian pronunciation sounds like you ask somone to "play another tune". Also very popular is the combination of old traditional names and a fancy foreign/mythological name; Njål Leander, Ronja Suzanne.....

Mycroft Vimes wrote:This is a Dutch one,but it fits so well i had to post it :Beenhakker(I tried google translation to see what came up,but that seems to be in love with Leo Beenhakker,which just won't do ,so my best guess the english translation would be something like Legchopper.) as in :http://www.beenhakker.nl/(Beenhakker levert een compleet assortiment mobiliteitshulpmiddelen..Transl to english : Legchopper supplies a complete assortment of mobility-aids...)Might be a leftover from the days when Napoleon forced the Dutch to take on last names and a lot took their professions as surnames.

A Dutch dwarf?

“Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.” – Blaise Pascal

Going back to Praise-God Barebone - we found this reference to him. Reading the early paragraphs, he sounds very much like a Discworld character who was selected to take over from Vetinary in The Truth.

At the age of 27, in 1623, Barebone was admitted as a freeman to the Leathersellers Company of London, and in 1634 as a liveryman. While he attended to the stock and trade common to the broad functional demands made on leather in his time, his substantial property and comfort came from his successes in purveying assorted harnesses and unexpected devices (to be worn by people of a particular inclination) crafted of leather in the service of a certain aesthetic founded in sensual and "unusual" erotic applications, discussions of which were not included in genteel conversations. As well, and by reason of experience gathered in the construction of the recreational goods mentioned, Barebone began to produce and offer stout harnesses for use in bearbaiting, and later, for bullbaiting, considering these devices to answer extensions of a similar base instinctual drive as that accommodated by his somewhat less grotesque boudoir fripperies

“Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.” – Blaise Pascal